Month: April 2016

A woman yells at Nosferatu in Starbucks

by digby

It was actually Florida Governor Rick Scott, but he is rather vampiric, you must admit. And not in a sexy “Twilight” kind of way:

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Who’s got the Tea Party?

by digby

Cruz, that’s who. This piece by Nate Silver points out something important. The RNC delegates are likely to be true believers.

It’s like something out of an Aaron Sorkin script. After their bitterly divisive primary, the Republican delegates come together to nominate John Kasich on the fourth ballot at a contested convention in Cleveland, despite his having won only his home state of Ohio. Or they choose House Speaker Paul Ryan, despite his not having run in the primaries at all. Balloons descend from the ceiling, celestial choirs sing and everything is right again with the Republican Party, which goes on to beat Hillary Clinton in a landslide in November.

As I said, it’s like something out of a TV show. In other words: probably fiction. It’s not that hard to imagine a contested convention. In fact, with Donald Trump’s path to 1,237 delegates looking tenuous, especially after his loss in Wisconsin on Tuesday night, it’s a real possibility. And it’s not hard to see how Republicans might think of Kasich or Ryan as good nominees. If Republicans were starting from scratch, both might be pretty good picks, especially from the perspective of the party “establishment” in Washington.

But Republicans won’t be starting from scratch, and the “establishment” won’t pick the party’s nominee. The 2,472 delegates in Cleveland will. And most of them will be chosen at state or local party conventions a long way from Washington. Few will be household names, having quietly attended party gatherings in Fargo, North Dakota, or Cheyenne, Wyoming, for years with little remuneration or recognition. Although the proverbial Acela-riding insiders might dream of Ryan or Kasich, there are indications that the rank-and-file delegates are into Ted Cruz — and they’re the ones who will have votes in Cleveland.

I’m going to guess this is one area where Roger Stone and  Trump’s good pal David Pecker, the editor of the National Enquirer will be put to use.

And who knows what the “days of rage” will bring?

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The GOP is finally being honest about Voter ID

by digby

They’re admitting it up front:

WATCH: @RepGrothman says voter ID will help GOP nom win Wisconsin in November: https://t.co/ynwNWDUXsB #Decision2016 pic.twitter.com/Uh005HtZKL

— TODAY’S TMJ4 (@tmj4) April 6, 2016

Trump’s planning for a war

by digby

I wrote about Trump’s next move for Salon this morning:

Donald Trump, the man who is going to deliver so much “winning” that we’ll be begging for him to stop because we just can’t take it anymore, lost last night and he lost big. Not that this was a surprise. Ted Cruz was ahead in the polls and it was always a contest that favored a more ideologically consistent movement conservative than Donald Trump.

And the results, as everyone who’s been paying even minimal attention to the Republican primary campaign so far knows by this time, means the media’s proverbial “brokered convention” may just be coming true this time. We call it the more politically correct “contested convention” because nobody likes the idea that men in the smoke-filled room will maneuver to choose a candidate behind the scenes and put him on the ticket regardless of the will of the voters. But that is exactly what is being discussed if Trump doesn’t go into the convention with enough delegates to win on the first ballot.
It’s possible that Ted Cruz will be able to wrangle enough votes to take the lead on the second ballot but since it’s unlikely to be very close, that scenario doesn’t look good either. And that’s despite the fact that he has the support of much of the hardcore conservative movement which today that would consider Ronald Reagan a liberal squish if they hadn’t been indoctrinated for 30 years into believing that he fulfilled every GOP fever dream of his time without ever having to compromise in any way. The establishment wants a “fresh face.”

If last night’s reaction by Trump to this possibility is any indication, he’s hunkering down for an epic battle. He gave no speech or “press conference” as he has done in the past. Instead his campaign issued a statement:

Donald J. Trump withstood the onslaught of the establishment yet again, Lyin’ Ted Cruz had the Governor of Wisconsin, many conservative talk radio hosts, and the entire party apparatus behind him. Not only was he propelled by the anti-Trump Super PAC’s spending countless millions of dollars on false advertising against Mr. Trump, but he was coordinating with his own Super PAC’s (which is illegal) who totally control him. Ted Cruz is worse than a puppet — he is a Trojan horse, being used by the party bosses attempting to steal the nomination from Mr. Trump. We have total confidence that Mr. Trump will go on to win in New York, where he holds a substantial lead in all the polls, and beyond. Mr. Trump is the only candidate who can secure the delegates needed to win the Republican nomination and ultimately defeat Hillary Clinton, or whomever is the Democratic nominee, in order to Make America Great Again.

Basically, Trump accused Cruz of stealing the Wisconsin primary with the illegal help of his Super PAC and the GOP establishment. It is tantamount to a declaration of war.

The Trojan Horse metaphor isn’t really on point, but the idea that certain rich donors and elected officials in the GOP are supporting Cruz for their own purposes is correct. They simply want him to block Trump so they can install a candidate more to their liking. Mitt Romney has been very upfront about that. It’s just that until recently Trump didn’t understand how the convention worked or that part of the game is working the delegates at state conventions. (He was reportedly fit to be tied when he found out and blamed his staff for failing him.)

But now that he’s up on the rules, he’s hired some experienced hands to handle these tactical details. including one of the most talented “delegate hunters” in the business, Paul Manafort. According to RealClear Politics:

Manafort is a “master” of delegate counting and convention strategy, according to those who have worked with and against him, and one of only a few operatives with practical experience in this niche area. For a campaign whose survival might well hinge on a few dozen delegates, Manafort’s hire is a monumental, if surprising, coup.

You don’t have to read between the lines to see that Trump is angry. And as he is the first to tell you, he believes that when you get hit, you hit back — hard. So it was unsurprising to find out that his close friend and former campaign adviser Roger Stone, the notorious dirty trickster, has a project to benefit Trump called “StoptheSteal.org.” All the way back in February, he predicted the establishment was going to try to “steal” the election from Trump and announced that he was planning to “reach out to some of my old associates” in order to “pull together some of the best convention operatives in America today.” He said, “We have set up a fund to pay for their travel, to pay for their hotel rooms, to bring them to Cleveland to avoid the steal.”

Last week he put out a call:

Go to Cleveland. Come to Cleveland. Don’t let the big steal go forward without massive protest. Peaceful, nonviolent protest. 

So, as they used to say, don’t wait for orders from headquarters. Ride to the sound of the guns. 

I don’t mean to imply violence on that. I mean: Ride to where the action will be.
We have to let the Republican bosses and the kingmakers and the insiders and the lobbyists know that we’re not going to stand for the big steal. So if you are a Trump supporter, make plans now. 

Take a bus! Hitchhike! Carpool! Take a train! Fly, if you can afford it.
We need you in Cleveland!

On Monday, harking back to the 1968 Democratic convention violence,  he described his plan for the RNC as “days of rage” which “could entail protests at certain targeted hotels where delegations who are involved in the ‘big steal’ are staying.” He claims that he’s getting an excellent response. One can certainly imagine how “enraged” Trump voters will be if it looks as though they are being denied the nomination due to machinations from the political elite. As Politico reported yesterday:

96 percent of [Trump’s] supporters said the U.S. needs a powerful leader to solve its problems, 91 percent said their beliefs and values are being threatened, and 90 percent said public officials don’t care much about what everyday people think.

“Trump supporters are true stand-outs,” Quinnipiac poll director Douglas Schwartz said. “They want a leader who is very different from the leader sought by other voters, explaining the mystery many see behind Trump’s support.” 

The Republican front-runner’s supporters even value his bombastic rhetoric. Eighty-four percent said the U.S. needs a leader who will do or say anything to fix the country’s issues, a statement just 68 percent of GOP voters overall agreed with (60 percent of Democrats disagree). 

The heightened concentration of Trump backers with strong feelings about being marginalized and having a bleak view of government is a consistent theme throughout the survey, as illustrated by the nine-in-10 supporters who view his campaign as a movement.

One might assume Stone’s project is just another wingnut scam designed to liberate some hard-earned money from the true believers. But Stone is no joke when it comes to this sort of operation. He was an integral part of one of the most consequential “protests” in recent history: the so-called Brooks-Brothers “riot” that shut down the counting of votes in Miami, one of the important steps that led to the installation of George W. Bush as president.

Last night after Cruz was declared the winner, this was announced:

Newest expected hire for the Trump campaign – former NY Rep. John Sweeney
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) April 6, 2016

Sweeney was once named one of the 20 Most Corrupt Members of Congress. But he’s most famous for something else:

During the 2000 election, Sweeney allegedly helped earn his nickname from President Bush, “Congressman Kickass,” by organizing the so-called Brooks Brothers riot that disrupted the Florida elections commissioners. He was said to have led the charge on the third recount in Miami, flying in astroturfing GOP operatives and instructing them to “shut it down!” by raising a clamor and pounding on the election commission’s doors. Sweeney used the words “thugs” to describe the Florida officials involved in the recount.

They’re getting the band back together.

A majority of Wisconsin Republicans told the exit pollsters they thought whoever comes in with the most delegates should win, so Trump has some popular backing for that notion. But that’s a very unlikely outcome. Trump is signaling that he’s not going to go down without a full-fledged bloody battle on the floor of he convention if he comes up short. And in case anyone thinks that Stone isn’t conferring with Trump on his plans for these “days of rage,” listen to the interview Stone gave to John Heileman and Mark Halperin on the subject. You’ll notice that he uses the “Trojan Horse” metaphor too. It could be coincidence — but I doubt it

There is power in high hopes
by Tom Sullivan

A rubber tree plantation in Phuket, Thailand. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Last night during his speech in Laramire, Wyoming, Sen. Bernie Sanders brought up how real change happens in this country. It was an inspiring nod to #fightfor15, and worth reading if you missed it:

If we were here in this beautiful auditorium 5 years ago, not a long time from a historical perspective, [and] somebody would have jumped up and said, you know, I think a $7.25 federal minimum wage is a starvation wage and it has got to be raised to $15 an hour.

Now [if] somebody stood up 5 years ago and said that the person next to them would have said,

‘You’re nuts! Fifteen bucks an hour?! You want to more than double the minimum wage? You’re crazy! Maybe, maybe we get up to 8, 9 bucks an hour. But 15 bucks an hour? You’re dreaming too big.’

Sound familiar?

‘You are unrealistic. It can’t be done. Think smaller.’

But then, what happened is fast food workers, people working at McDonald’s, people working at Burger King, people working at Wendy’s, they went out on strike …

And they went out and said, ‘Fellow Americans, we can’t live on seven and a quarter an hour. We can’t live on 8 bucks an hour. You’ve got to raise the minimum wage to 15 bucks an hour.’

And they fought and they fought. And then suddenly a few years ago, Seattle, Washington — 15 bucks an hour. Los Angeles, San Francisco — 15 bucks an hour. Oregon — 15 bucks an hour. And in the last several weeks, in both California and New York, governors signed legislation for 15 bucks an hour.

What is my point? My point is, yes, that we can change the status quo when we think big and when we have a vision.

You can watch that part of the speech here [timestamp 18:50].

Zaid Jilani at The Intercept celebrates “Fight for 15” by rubbing some of the negativism in pundits’ faces, quoting those who said it couldn’t be done:

The hikes come as a direct result of organizing by thousands of people in the union-backed “Fight for 15” movement that kicked off in 2012 — organizing that was quickly decried by pundits and opponents as unrealistic and unlikely to ever succeed.

The Fight for 15 movement began when several hundred fast-food workers in New York City went on a brief strike to call for higher wages; by the next year, this movement had spread to dozens of cities, with workers going on miniature strikes and protest marches to call for a $15 an hour wage.

This innovative tactic — organizing workers with no union representation to go on flash strikes to call attention to their meager wages — raised eyebrows among many in the pundit class who attempted to downplay its power.

David Dayen tells Brad Friedman why this is what Joe Biden might call a BFD:

“1 in every 8 workers in America is a Californian. Under this proposal, over 33% of them are going to get a raise at some point along the way between now and 2022. And thereafter, because after 2022, the minimum wage gets tied to inflation, so it keeps going up.”

Yes, the federal minimum remains at $7.25 an hour for now, but that is because, as Sanders pointed out, real change comes from the bottom up, not the top down. So proud to know a few of the Fight for 15 organizers.

Showing my age, but a silly Frank Sinatra tune from the Kennedy era comes to mind.

“I am doing so good on nuclear by people that are fair”

by digby

Trump laid out his plan to entire the national debt of 19 trillion dollars and also finance his massive tax cut estimated to cost 12 trillion in addition to a bunch of new programs to a talk show host this week:

Trump told radio host Joe Pags over the weekend that he will do this by putting the squeeze on Japan and appointing “great people” to cut the budget of each federal department “2 or 3 percent.” Such a plan, Trump said, would be “very easy” to pull off.

The GOP presidential frontrunner, who has previously said that he would be fine with Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia acquiring nuclear weapons in order to reduce the U.S. burden to defend those nations, said he would cut the national debt by putting the squeeze on countries like Japan, never mind the threat it faces from North Korea. These budget cuts and new tribute payments, Trump explained, will not only cover the national debt but will also fund his huge tax and spending plans.

He said:

“It’s possible that if Japan doesn’t want to pay up, we’ll say, ‘Good luck and defend yourself. If that means they’re going to have to arm in some way, they’re going to have to arm in some way. We can’t afford to — we’re paying for the military of Japan. And every time this maniac in North Korea — and it’s a bigger problem for them than it is for us, frankly — every time this maniac in North Korea raises his head, we start doubling up. At one point do people take care of us? We’re a debtor nation. Our country is falling apart. Our infrastructure is dying. We owe all of those trillions of dollars. $19, it’s going to be $21 very soon with that stupid budget that was just passed three months ago, the omnibus budget, at what point do we say, ‘Enough, enough’?”

“The [Japanese and Saudi Arabians] don’t like us so much and you know what, with me, they’re going to like us and they’re going to pay more and they’re going to be very happy, okay?”

He has no clue about the omnibus but it’s a staple of right wing radio so he says it knowing that the listeners will respond with anger even though they don’t know what it means either except that a bunch of RINOs led by Paul Ryan betrayed them by failing to repeal Obamacare.

And if you’re wondering what he means when says they’ll be happy, he means that people will do what he says because, like Vince Lombardi” he is a winner and that means everyone will be afraid to cross him. Because nobody crosses a winner and they’re happy to do what they’re told. Or something.

There’s more:

I know how to fix it [outsourcing], so easy, that aspect of it. And even, you know, the nuclear. I am doing so good on nuclear by people that are fair. What’s happening now is we’re paying for the world’s — we’re like the world’s policeman but they don’t pay us for it. We lose a fortune on the military. You know, our military budget is phenomenally higher than any other budget but it’s not for us, we’re protecting everybody else and we lose a fortune. Frankly, Joe, we lose a fortune on everything we do and we have to make our country strong financially again and if we don’t do that we’re never going to have a strong country again. And I’ll save Social Security. I’ll save things that everyone else says can’t be saved because I’ll bring back all of this money that we’re wasting on other countries.”

“We’re going to have a country like you wouldn’t believe.”

We agree on something at long last.

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Ted Cruz, ladies man


by digby

The movement makes the case for Cruz vs Trump on the basis of women voters:

Now that outsiders Senator Ted Cruz and billionaire Donald Trump have emerged as the top two vote getters the argument should shift from who is going to break the Washington Cartel to who is going to break the Washington Cartel AND beat Hillary Clinton in November.

And in that contest Senator Ted Cruz is clearly the best choice because, although we continue to like much of Donald Trump’s message, the messenger has, through his own lack of discipline, damaged himself to the point that we doubt his ability to recover.

According to a March NBC/Wall Street Journal poll 47% of female Republican primary voters cannot see themselves voting for Trump.

Just over half of Republican women said they could support Trump in that NBC/WSJ poll. That’s significantly lower than his GOP rivals, but it might be enough for Trump to secure the Republican nomination.

But that’s only half the battle. If Trump becomes the nominee, there’s another number from that poll he’ll have to contend with: 70 percent of women overall have an unfavorable view of him.

“It’s not just that people don’t like him a little bit — it’s that there is such a strong number of strongly unfavorable women,” Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson told NPR.

In 2012, Barack Obama bested Mitt Romney by far less — 55 percent to 44 percent — among female voters according to NBC reporter Carrie Dann’s analysis.

According to the NBC/WSJ poll Trump’s favorability with women overall is a dismal 21 percent positive/ 70 percent negative.

With men, it’s 28 percent positive/ 59 percent negative.

And that was before Trump’s undisciplined shoot-from-the-lip comments about punishing women who have an abortion.

“When you are looking at trying to win the White House and you’re struggling so much with a majority of the electorate, which is what women represent, it makes it just very difficult to envision a clear path to the White House for someone like Donald Trump who has taken an already difficult situation for the GOP and made it significantly worse,” Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson said to NPR.

Don’t expect Trump’s statements on women to go away anytime soon. They are likely to show up repeatedly in attack ads, said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake.

Asked if they would prefer to see a Democratic president or a Republican president regardless of who the nominees are, 52 percent of female voters chose the Democratic option while 36 percent chose the Republican option. That’s a net advantage of 16 percentage points for the Democratic candidate said NBC’s Carrie Dann.

But plug in the names “Hillary Clinton” and “Donald Trump” and the gap gets even wider.

In that hypothetical matchup, just 31 percent of women said they would choose Trump, while 58 percent said they would choose Clinton. That’s a net advantage of 27 points for Clinton.

Donald Trump consistently has a 20-odd point gap in support between men and women. A gap he has acknowledged he needs to do something about, but so far has lacked the discipline to address in any meaningful way.

In contrast, Senator Cruz is “an authentic conservative Republican with a discernible government point of view” as establishment Republican wise man Ed Rogers put it.  And, unlike Donald Trump, Ted Cruz has slowly, but surely, expanded his base and built a coalition that is the basis for victory against Hillary Clinton in November.

Except Cruz’s general unavorability is going in the wrong direction too:

The more people get to know him, the less they like him.

And while Cruz isn’t despised by women at the same level as Trump, who seven out of ten women loathe with a passion, he’s very unpopular with women in this country. Despite the somewhat hard to fathom rumors of his Lothario tendencies, it’s not as if Cruz is some kind of magnet for lady voters…

I guess it’s a little bit better that 58% of women can’t stand Cruz, as opposed to Trump’s 68%.  But still …

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Grumpie Trumpie has it both ways

by digby

He’s backtracking on his abortion “clarification now”.  Because of course he is. Via Right Wing Watch:

Pags: Many people say that the difference in Wisconsin is because of that ridiculous question that Chris Matthews that asked you. I’m not going to ask you the question because it was hypothetical and it was stupid. I really don’t believe the question had any merit whatsoever and the guy is not a journalist. But having said that, why continue to go on any MSNBC property after what CNBC did in that one debate that was disgusting? And then you go on MSNBC and you have to expect to be attacked. Why even go? It only benefits them. How does it benefit you?

Trump: It was a hypothetical question. A lot of people thought my answer was excellent, by the way. There were a lot of people who thought that was a very good answer. It was a hypothetical question. I didn’t see any big deal and then all of a sudden there was somewhat of a storm. And you know, it’s interesting, this morning I’m hearing two hosts on television that were critical and they said, “We really thought his first answer was very good.” Because you can’t win. “We thought it was good, what was wrong with his first answer?” And I heard a pastor, who is a fantastic pastor, saying, “Well, you know, if you think about it, his first answer is right.”

Pags: Your answer was consistent with conservatism but Chris Matthews has an agenda, so I’m not even wondering about the question because I thought it was loaded and stupid and hypothetical.

Trump: It was disgraceful.

Pags: Why go on the show? Why go?

Trump: I heard people defending it today. Now they defend it. Now they say, “It was really right.” The whole thing is just so — the press is extremely unfair. A lot of very terrible people. It is interesting with MSNBC. Not only that, I made NBC a fortune with “The Apprentice.” An absolute fortune with “The Apprentice.” But they’ve all got agendas and I understand that. Frankly, they’re bad but they’re sort of all bad. I don’t get treated well on Fox. I don’t get treated well on CNN.

He believes his first answer was the right one. He’s right. Plenty of people agree with him, it’s just not the politically correct answer. Apparently he hasn’t realized that the right has its own PC (John McCain anyone?) And by now I’d guess he fervently believes that women should be punished now that he sees “the women” are betraying him. (You can’t trust those beyotches….)

And when is somebody going to call him out on this endless complaining and crying about the press being so unfair to him boo-hoo-hoo, they’re all such meanies! What a whiner. Give him a bottle and put him to bed.

This can be a very potent meme against these bully types:

Days of rage at the RNC

by digby

Trump’s confidant Roger Stone is the man with a plan:

On Bloomberg’s With All Due Respect Monday, Roger Stone, a former adviser to the Donald Trump campaign, discusses the state of the GOP front-runner’s campaign, the battle for delegates and the possibility of “days of rage” protests at this summer’s Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

“It entails enormous demonstration,” Stone said. “It could entail protests at certain targeted hotels where delegations who are involved in the ‘big steal’ are staying.”

“It will be non-violent,” Stone added. “It’s a reverse-Alinsky.”

Last week, Stone made a call for “non-violent” protests at the convention.

Stone has decades of dirty tricks under his belt and he’s destroyed a number of luminarie’s careers. And he knows how to make a “day of rage” happen:

The capstone of Stone’s career, at least in terms of results, was the “Brooks Brothers riot” of the 2000 election recount. This was when a Stone-led squad of pro-Bush protestors stormed the Miami-Dade County election board, stopping the recount and advancing then-Governor George W. Bush one step closer to the White House.

The protesters, you’ll recall, were all GOP congressional staffers. Stone directed the action from a command post down the street. It changed the course of history.

Maddow had a nice piece on right wing “protests” back in 2009:

Update: More on Stone here. Yikes.

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When hucksters win

by digby

We haven’t heard a lot about “baby parts” recently but I’d expect it will be back in the headlines when Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn and company run their hearings for the Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives. But this investigation by the Los Angeles Times into the “Center for medical Progress” videos should discredit them once and for all:

She was subdued and sympathetic on camera. Her recollections of collecting fetal tissue and body parts from abortion clinics in northern California lent emotional force to the anti-abortion videos that provoked a furor in Congress last summer.

In footage made public last July, Holly O’Donnell said she had been traumatized by her work for a fetal-tissue brokerage. She described feeling “pain…and death and eternity” and said she fainted the first time she touched the remains of an aborted fetus.

Unreleased footage filed in a civil court case shows that O’Donnell’s apparently spontaneous reflections were carefully rehearsed. David Daleiden, the anti-abortion activist who made the videos, is heard coaching O’Donnell through repeated takes, instructing her to repeat anecdotes, add details, speak “fluidly” and be “very natural.”

“Let’s try it two more times,” he told her at one point.

Later, O’Donnell protested: “I don’t want to tell that story again. Please don’t make me again, David.”

For more than two years, Daleiden and a small circle of anti-abortion activists went undercover into meetings of abortion providers and women’s health groups. With fake IDs and tiny hidden cameras, they sought to capture Planned Parenthood officials making inflammatory statements. O’Donnell cooperated with the filmmakers, offering an inside view of the fetal tissue trade.

The videos sparked numerous investigations into Planned Parenthood and efforts in Congress to strip the organization of its federal funding.

Now, Daleiden, head of the Irvine-based Center for Medical Progress, and his associates contend that they were acting as investigative journalists, seeking to expose illegal conduct. That is one of their defenses in lawsuits brought by Planned Parenthood and other groups, accusing them of fraud and invasion of privacy.

But unpublicized footage and court records show that the activists’ methods were geared more toward political provocation than journalism.

The Times and the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley took a detailed look at published and unreleased video footage, sworn declarations, excerpts of recorded dialogue and other court records from the lawsuits against Daleiden.

The editing is far more extensive than we knew.They tried to get people drunk on hidden camera and put words in their mouths. It’s outrageous that this fraud is still going to get hearings.

Eight months after the release of the videos, investigations in a dozen states have found no wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood.

Not that it matters. The anti-abortion industry is in full celebration mode:

Adding to the momentum to defund abortion giant Planned Parenthood, Ohio Gov. John Kasich signed a bill Sunday that strips $1.3 million in taxpayer money from the organization.

Ten states—Wisconsin and Ohio being the most recent—have taken action over the past several months to cut taxpayer dollars from Planned Parenthood.

“Not one more penny should go to Planned Parenthood, a scandal-plagued abortion business that does not provide comprehensive health care services for women,” Casey Mattox, Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel, said in a statement.

The Ohio Legislature passed the bill, H.B. 294, earlier this month and sent it to Kasich, a Republican, for his signature. Under the new law, state and certain federal funds will be directed to federally qualified health centers and departments instead of entities that perform or promote elective abortions.

Mattox, who testified before the Ohio Senate’s Government Oversight and Reform Committee to provide legal opinion on an earlier Senate version of the bill, added:

Ohio’s new law terminates funding for Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses, freeing up money for more widely available and more comprehensive low-cost health care options for women and families in the state. Taxpayer dollars should not go to organizations with a long track record of abusive and potentially fraudulent billing practices, that have been caught in authenticated undercover videos negotiating prices for baby body parts, and that have repeatedly failed to report the sexual abuse of girls. Ohio is right to end its relationship with organizations undeserving of taxpayer money and unworthy of the taxpayers’ trust.

Planned Parenthood has fought other states’ efforts to cut off its funding, arguing that its constitutional rights were being violated.

The legislation “will have devastating consequences for women across Ohio,” Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said in a statement.

At least a dozen state governments and the U.S. Congress began investigations into Planned Parenthood following videos released by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP) last summer. The videos, which showed undercover footage, sparked a nationwide conversation into alleged illegal conduct by Planned Parenthood.

“Planned Parenthood’s involvement in abortion is well-known,” Chuck Donovan, president of the Charlotte Lozier Institute, told The Daily Signal. “The Center for Medical Progress videos have just pointed out exactly what that means in a way that you can’t look away from it.”

David Daleiden, founder of CMP, and his colleague Sandra Merritt were indicted for falsifying driver’s licenses used during their investigation into Planned Parenthood. Daleiden was also indicted for knowingly and intentionally offering to buy fetal tissue. Planned Parenthood has claimed no wrongdoing.

“The Center for Medical Progress put this on the national agenda,” Donovan said. “So much of government ends up being pointing out something that’s been a problem for a while and finally recognizing that the bureaucracy has let things happen.”

Donovan thinks the legal battle over the videos will have “very little effect.”

He’s probably right. They did their damage through lies and fraud.

This is their fundamental belief:

Anyone want to join me in a dramatic reading of The Handmaid’s Tale?

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